


No more goodbyes

by InLust



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/F, Longing, Missed Opportunities, Paperman AU, Pre-Relationship, mundanity, paper airplanes being sentient and symbolic, red lipstick, strangers on a platform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5391563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InLust/pseuds/InLust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paperman AU. Peggy is used to missed opportunities. They were always rooted from foolishness and insanity. She was safer this way. But she doesn’t want it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No more goodbyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poetrythroughprose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetrythroughprose/gifts).



> I am pretty sure it’s been done before because the red lipstick and what not is totally Peggy. HOWEVER, here is my own little spin on it because clearly there is a lot more going on here.

The sounds of the birds chirping against the traffic has become a monotony in her mind. When the trains roll by, it becomes a cacophony of sound that passes by. Even the faces of the city become gray because they lack the life she does.

Peggy honestly doesn’t know why she even bothers anymore. Why she puts on her suit and heels before grabbing the stack of papers and heading out the door anymore. Sometimes she wakes up to the sound of her alarm wishing that she could hear something else.

She stands at the train station hugging the stack of papers close to her chest, wondering if the day will be  _different_. Hope slowly drifts away as each second ticks away. It won’t be any different. It’s been the  _same_ for years.

A breeze blows by and Peggy clutches the worthless stack of papers.

In a second, a piece of paper floats by and she thinks it’s hers.

“Oh, shoot!  _No, no, no_!” a voice chases after the paper and all Peggy sees is brown and gold.

Peggy watches the figure run by and snatches the paper right out of the air. A little smile graces her lips, glad for the woman.

The woman doesn’t say anything as she sheepishly takes her place next to Peggy.

Peggy nods politely when the woman glances at her.

_I’ve never seen her before. Maybe I should say something. Maybe hello._

Just as Peggy turns her head to say hello and errant breeze steals her sheet. Before she can react, the paper lands against the shorter woman’s face.

Peggy gasps and takes the paper, trying to hold back a laugh. When she sees the woman’s face, scrunched up and eyes shut to the paper, her heart skips a beat.

The woman glows and for a second Peggy forgets that most of her life is gray. The brown hair is gold under the halo of sunlight that kisses her head. She looks youthful with brown eyes wide with curiosity. And her lips are so bold painted with red.

The woman giggles suddenly, breaking their eye contact. She nods to the paper in Peggy’s hand.

Peggy stares as it flutters in the wind followed by the sound of the train arriving. The woman’s red lipstick stains the paper brightly and Peggy smiles.

When she looks back, the woman is no longer standing before her. Peggy’s eyes search for her and all she sees is the woman taking her seat on the train. As it departs, Peggy feels a sense of loss as the woman turns her head to meet Peggy’s gaze.

A minute later, her train arrives and Peggy tears her attention back to her existence.

Peggy wonders more often than not if her life could be different. That maybe her life had a greater purpose than pushing papers around just to  _create_ work. That maybe her life was made to  _leave marks_ in the universe.

Her pen scratches into the paper. The templated sheet has fitted words that she knows by heart. Without even looking, she is sure to fill it out correctly anyways.

After most of her stack is finished she looks at the sheet stained with the woman’s lips. Peggy’s mind wanders to her once more. Wondering what she does, what she dreams of, what she hopes to accomplish, whether or not she sees the world as gray as Peggy does.

The sheet flutters to life once more and Peggy grabs for it and seizes it just at the window. Her chest tightens, feeling something special for someone that she doesn’t even know.

_It’s silly and foolish._

Her life was doomed for mundanity.

She wishes  _at least_  to see that woman again. The sheet flutters in her hand once more and she places it safely on her desk before moving to shut it.

There she was. The  _woman_. Through the streets of honking horns and bustling life, Peggy sees the woman from the platform entering a room in the building across the street. Peggy feels her heart race. It makes her jump and wave her arms.

“ _Carter_ , what’re you doing?!” Thompson snaps at her. “Shut the damn window and get to work like everyone else!”

Peggy doesn’t say a word. Her coworkers all look at her before going back to their work and she falls back into her chair derisively.

The window is still open. The only thing missing between her and the woman was a connection. A line. Something to bring them together. Peggy crosses her arms at the papers stacked before her.

Without thinking, she grabs a sheet and folds it. _Folds it. Folds it. Folds it._

The sheet with her lipstick sits still on her desk and Peggy looks at the paper airplane in her hands.

_This is mad. Positively._

She holds the airplane in her hand and looks out the window. The woman looks happy with herself standing before a man in the room. Her mouth moves quickly and dramatically. But she moves with more spirit than Peggy’s ever seen.

Or felt.

Maybe she shouldn’t. _It’s foolish._

A breeze picks up and steals the plane from her grasp. Peggy can’t reach out to stop it as the wind carries it away from her. In her heart, she hopes it reaches the woman. She watches and watches as it heads straight for the other building. Her heart lifts.

 _Boop_.

The paper airplane hits the edge of the window and falls out of view. And just like that, Peggy’s heart drops. It was so close.

_It was so close._

Peggy thinks with renewed determination. If it could be  _that_ close. She’d have to just try  _again_. It’s foolish.  _But foolishness be damned._

_Fold. Fold. Fold._

She throws the new plane. Maybe that was her problem.

_It hits the metal frame._

Maybe she was afraid of the foolishness leading to nothingness. She played it safe for the longest time.

_Fold. Fold. Fold._

_It hits the top of the window._

_Fold. Fold. Fold._

Peggy keeps folding. She keeps hoping. It’s just insanity. Yet, she keeps trying. Feeling all the missed opportunities in her life slip from her mind. The anxiety of choosing not to act no longer cripples her as she feels herself soar with hope. At least,  _maybe_ she can say  _hello_.

She keeps throwing and throwing. Her hope is replaced with frustration.

Every time, her mind screams that she is getting closer and closer. But the seconds tick by and she feels further than ever.

Her hand hits the metal basket and it falls with a clang that catches everyone’s attention.

Peggy darts her eyes to the sound and finds her paper devoid of a stack. She feels lighter seeing the lipstick stained sheet sitting on her desk.

She looks up at Daniel sitting next to her. He stares back dubiously before pulling his stack away from the edge.

Peggy huffs and stares down at the lipstick stained sheet sitting on its own.

_Fold. Fold. Fold._

She takes a breath, feeling as though the end was near even though there was never even a beginning.

Just maybe,  _this_ could be  _their beginning_.

Across the street, the woman has finished her work with a smile on her face. Body beaming with excitement and Peggy is jealous. She wants the same.

“Carter!”

Peggy jerks away from the window startled and the paper airplane is swept out of her grasp. Before she can react the wind takes it away and she watches as it fall to the ground helplessly.

A low thump hits her desk and Peggy sees another stack of paper. She looks up to meet Thompson’s smug look. “Get working,  _sweetheart_.”

He starts walking to his office with Dooley leading the way. Dooley shoots her a nasty glare. Thompson just looks smug.

Everyone waits for her to do something. To react. To tell him off.

The only thing that races through her mind is the fate of that paper airplane. Maybe upon exiting, it would make its way to the woman.

Peggy has hope. Out of all the things to have hope for, she believes in  _this_.

Daniel looks at her with curiosity. His eyes sudden plead for her to get back to work. He doesn’t ever want trouble.

That’s not how she wanted to live her life. For some odd reason, she realizes that she doesn’t have to.

For the first time in a long time, she grabs her blazer and rushes out of the office. If she has any hope at all, she has to chase it.

She runs across the street dodging bikes and cars. People part ways for her to rush by.

The woman could’ve been downstairs by now but Peggy looks left and right and she isn’t there. She isn’t anywhere. She feels her heart drop.

Before her the airplane with red lipstick sits on top of the mailbox. Just like that, Peggy realizes that maybe she shouldn’t have had hope at all. Because the message never makes it to the woman anyways.

Peggy grabs it and throws it into the air.  _Let it be damned._

And she just walks. Not like she can go back to work anyways.

She curses at herself for her foolishness. She curses that glimmer of hope that plays inside her heart.

The idea of missing an opportunity has never bothered her this much before. However, there were too many of them that she let slip through her fingers. The people she’s lost and let go of were long forgotten. She had to keep moving on.

She’d stop lingering over every loss because this was the reality she lived in. The life of mundanity and security she had was what everyone was jealous of. Everyone wanted her life, but Peggy wanted more.

She just wanted another chance to start over.

Peggy gets to the end of the block when she feels something hit her chest. The airplane. She slaps it away. The sight of it taunts her. She keeps walking.

Then she feels it. The wind picks up and presses back against her, stopping her from moving. She looks down and she’s swarmed with all the paper planes she’s folded. All of them  _failures_. Failures that came back to taunt her.

She fights against them and tries to break free of their hold. They’re persistent and eager to contain her. She notices the more she fights it the more they push back at her. They guide her back along the sidewalk, through the streets. 

For a moment, she feels her heart race as she’s being lifted back onto the platform of the train. They throw her onto a train.

 _This is mad._ She says over and over in her mind.

Through the train ride, she sits there angered by this turn of events. She looks like a fright to everyone, covered in paper airplanes. She struggles to stand but the sheets all force her back down. The irony of her work that she turns it into hope but it weighs her down.

The train comes to a screeching halt and Peggy’s lifted to her feet. She recognizes the stop from earlier that morning and thinks of the woman that brought the color into her life. She stops thinking of it because it’s foolish and unrealistic.

When she stumbles onto the platform, she doesn’t feel the weight of the planes pressing against her any longer. She feels lighter as they fall to the ground in succession before floating away together.

The air shifts and through the fleet the paper planes, Peggy sees her.

The woman stands there with a hopeful smile on her face holding a paper airplane with her lipstick stained on it.

Peggy feels her heart swell in her chest and a smile graces her lips. Maybe it was insanity. Maybe it was foolish. But maybe it was what Peggy  _needed_.

The woman stands before her, mirroring her smile, maybe even feeling the same way.

They  _both belong_ there.

And Peggy thinks to say, “Hello.”


End file.
